The present invention relates to a system for animal identification and more particularly to a system for electronically tagging livestock using an internal transmitter, which preferably may be made to reside in the reticulum of ruminants.
An enduring problem in the livestock industry has been the lack of an adequate system of animal identification suitable for use in preventing rustling, aiding in disease control, and facilitating animal inventory during marketing and slaughter. The traditional method of identification has, of course, been hot-iron branding but more recently freeze branding and various other external tagging techniques have been developed. However, most of the presently used systems only lend themselves to herd identification and no effective system is known which is capable of wide spread use in uniquely identifying individual animals and which is also suitable for all identification purposes. For example, while a serial number collar tagging system might be suitable for uniquely identifying animals for disease identification and inventory purposes, it would be quite susceptible to altering for purposes of rustling. In addition, while many systems might be suggested which theoretically would meet all of the technical requirements, still in order for a system to achieve widespread use, it must gain general acceptance among the members of the industry.
The system of the present invention, which may be used in lieu of or supplementary to present external branding or tagging techniques, is believed to fulfill all of the basic requirements for a unique animal identification system suitable for the purposes noted above, particularly in the case of ruminating animals.